Quote:
Originally Posted by indigostars
I think one of the reasons BDSS gets slammed for redundancy is that it's always advertised with a a new theme. Perhaps it's wrong of me to comment, since I haven't seen the show ever and have only "experienced" it via DVD, pics, and people's reviews, but I'm guessing people are expecting a a twist to the normal show that fits into the theme. Does that make sense? I think ballet benefits in that there's a story.
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That could very well be, indigostars!
This reminds me of one of my daughter's "ballet" recitals when she was a little one!
The theme was something about Disney Princesses (you know, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Princess Jasmine, etc) and used a song or two from each of the soundtracks. Each class performed two numbers, one ballet and one jazz. All the songs in the ballet section were from the princess soundtracks and mostly other music was used for jazz. So in this case, at least half of the show followed the theme and it made sense to title it that way.
Perhaps when there is a theme-like title for BDSS, we expect something similar. And perhaps we need to think of it more like a variety production that is entertainment for the sake of entertainment, rather than looking for a true theme to guide the show or a story to follow. Note: the idea of "entertainment for the sake of entertainment" is not in any way derogatory; most of our entertainments are of that genre.
The only time I might expect a BD show to exhibit a very obvious theme is if it is billed that way.
For example, a show entitled something like "Silk Road Travels" which was further described as featuring dances from places along the Silk Road would lead me to believe that I would be seeing mostly folk/folkloric dances (group or solo); I would not expect ATS or any other style of obvious fusion, bellynesian, poi balls or "pharonic" dances.
If that same title was described something like "trace belly dancing's roots . . . from small towns in Armenia to the stages of Cairo," I'd expect to at least see some cabaret style costuming, props and styles along with the folk/folkloric.
Neither of these are examples are stories, just thematic(sp) devices. Now, if I saw something titled "Scheherazad's Stories," then I might expect the show to reasonably reflect some of Scheherezad's stories, or her life, unless further descriptions indicated more of a "standard" BD show that has a cool name.
Yeah, I'm getting a better idea of why folks see BDSS shows year-to-year as a bit repetitious . . . thanks again, indigostars!
Deborah